xiii, 338 pages : 23 cm

Examines the real-world influences that shaped J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels The hobbit and The lord of the rings

Tolkien expert Christopher Snyder presents the most in-depth exploration yet of Tolkien's source materials for Middle-earth --from the languages, poetry, and mythology of medieval Europe and ancient Greece to the halls of Oxford and the battlefields of World War I

Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-327), timeline, appendices, and index

Learning his craft - From Africa to Birmingham - Oxford - The Great War - Tolkien the Scholar - Tolkien the Teacher - The Inklings - Fame and Retirement - Writing Tolkien -- Tolkien's middle ages - Back to the Sources - Ancient Greece and Rome - Celtic Britain and Ireland - The Anglo-Saxons and Old English - The Vikings and Old Norse - Middle English Literature - King Arthur and the Matter of Britain - Victorian Fairy Tales and the Gothic Revival - Finnish and The Kalevala - William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites - Andrew Lang - George MacDonald - The Northern Land -- "There and Back again" - Hobbits and Dwarves - Trolls and Goblins, Gnomes and Elves - Mountains, Rings, and Riddles in the Dark - Beorn - Mirkwood and Lake-town - Smaug - Endings -- Tales of the Third age - The Fellowship of the Ring - The Two Towers - The Return of the King -- The song of Iluvatar - The Silmarillion - The Children of Hurin -- Appendix I : Monsters and Critics -- Appendix II : Media and Middle-Earth -- Appendix III : Tolkieniana -- Appendix IV : The Moral Virtues of Middle Earth -- A Tolkien Timeline

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